"It's pretty easy to go back," she says, affirming Sawyer's statement that the average woman makes seven attempts to leave an abusive partner. "You start lying to yourself. The physical wounds go away. You want this thing to go away. This is a memory you don't want to ever have again."

Now a reconciliation is all but impossible – a judge has ordered Brown, 20, not to contact Rihanna (real name: Robin Fenty) for five years as part of his sentence.

Rihanna says she was further humiliated by the public nature of the incident, which included a leaked photo of her battered face.

But she had an epiphany about how her actions after the assault would affect thousands of impressionable girls.

"When I realized that my selfish decision for love could result in some young girl getting killed, I could not be easy with that part," she says. "I couldn't be responsible for that. Even if Chris never hit me again, who's to say their boyfriend won't? Who's to say they won't kill these girls? I didn't realize how much of an impact I had on these girls' lives until that happened."